Wow.
I have just emerged from a labyrinth that begins innocently enough at a page called, Fred Sez. This page is only the blog portion of his website. It is the entrance to a vast domain filled to overflowing with all things comics and pop culture.
My head is spinning.
His blog page opens to a rather garish blue and pale yellow background with the words “Fred Sez” in bold block letters. As soon as I found out that our author is a long time published cartoonist, the colors made more sense. But they are still garish!
The opening entry that I encountered was a little retrospective on the passing of Fay Wray. I continued to read and found an impressive array of writing on subjects as diverse as, baseball, his misadventures with an overloaded clothes dryer, and an account of a family outing to a Paul McCartney concert. All of which are well written (if long) essays that left me feeling that I was in the presence of a hyperactive teenager, when in fact we are talking about a full grown man. But then cartoonists must have a very firm grasp of their inner child, otherwise they would grow up and be political analysts or something.
When I finally found his home page and a links page I was overwhelmed with the sheer volume of information on this website. There are what I could only describe as historical archives of the comic genre in general, with a liberal dose of pop culture thrown in, both past and present.
There are links to his own comic book art and one section I would recommend checking out is the link entitled “Kidz”. There are full-length comic book pages there that you can read. They are reminiscent of the Archie comic that I used to read as a kid. (About the only comic I was ever likely to spend my hard-earned money on come to think of it.)
It is entirely possible that you will recognize this author, but I must admit I had never heard of him, not being a big comics fan myself. However I was very impressed with the depth of his knowledge of the subject and his amusing take on everything he chooses to write about.
Well worth a visit. But plan to spend some time here. And don’t be fooled by that deceptive opening page, there is a serious man behind it who still seems to be in touch with the magic of his childhood. And if you stay long enough, you may be touched by that magic yourself.